Americans love to colonize their beaches. But when storms
threaten, high-ticket beachfront construction invariably takes
precedence over coastal environmental concerns -- we rescue the
buildings, not the beaches. As Cornelia Dean explains in "Against
the Tide," this pattern is leading to the rapid destruction of our
coast. But her eloquent account also offers sound advice for
salvaging the stretches of pristine American shore that remain.
The story begins with the tale of the devastating hurricane that
struck Galveston, Texas, in 1900 -- the deadliest natural disaster
in American history, which killed some six thousand people.
Misguided residents constructed a wall to prevent another tragedy,
but the barrier ruined the beach and ultimately destroyed the
town's booming resort business.
From harrowing accounts of natural disasters to lucid ecological
explanations of natural coastal processes, from reports of human
interference and construction on the shore to clear-eyed
elucidation of public policy and conservation interests, this book
illustrates in rich detail the conflicting interests, short-term
responses, and long-range imperatives that have been the hallmarks
of America's love affair with her coast.
Intriguing observations about America's beaches, past and
present, include discussions of Hurricane Andrew's assault on the
Gulf Coast, the 1962 northeaster that ravaged one thousand miles of
the Atlantic shore, the beleaguered beaches of New Jersey and North
Carolina's rapidly vanishing Outer Banks, and the sand-starved
coast of southern California. Dean provides dozens of examples of
human attempts to tame the ocean -- as well as a wealth of lucid
descriptions of the ocean's counterattack. Readers will appreciate
"Against the Tide's" painless course in coastal processes and new
perspective on the beach.
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